DameNation
by Evanscent
Summary: Written in the style of the Sin City yarns.


S/D: I don't own these confounded characters. They haunt me in my dreams, my waking and in my desires.

A/N: Please take notice that this story is written much like a detective novel. I based it entirely off the Sin City yarns.

**Dame-nation**

I could hear the sirens in the night. They were coming. Soon, it would all end. This whole thing would be over.

She sobbed into the cold ground at my feet, her tattered dress clinging to her lithe form. I would kneel and comfort her as soon as I finished it.

My _victim_ coughed up a hunk of lung, pink and bloody. He already had four holes in his chest, the air leaking from the gaping wounds like pressure from a tire, hissing and short-lived. I lowered my Magnum and aimed carefully. I wasn't going to miss. Not this time, not when I could end it right now.

The shouts of policemen echoed through the cold. "Freeze! Police!"

I used to welcome that sound.

"I'll see you in Hell, Vegeta," rasped the fat man, his lips speckled with blood and bile. Gore streaked the man's teeth as he broke in a huge smile, his laughter hoarse and ragged.

"I'll kill you there too." My eyes hardened as I made sure my aim was perfect and fired. The gun kicked back. His throat became a mess of soft tissues for the coroner. That shut him up. I aimed again. I unloaded the last shot right between his eyes. Matter exploded from the cranial cavity, blood and brains flew in crimson streaks to stain the emerald ground beyond. Smoke rose from the barrel. It was over.

I heard the thundering clap of firearms behind me. I felt the heat of the bullets as they seared through me.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

.

.

.

It all started when I retired. My chums were throwing me some going away party down at the pub. I'd never gotten so shit-faced in my entire life. Not in all forty nine years. They patted me on the back and congratulated me on living through it all. They told me to go home and make love to my wife. They put me in a cab and sent me away. It wasn't till the next morning that I made it home half dressed, hungry and with a killer headache. A week later when Nancy found a pack of matches with some ho's number on it, I began to question my sanity.

She was doing the laundry. I was in the garage, punching away at my beat up bag and pretending I didn't feel as old as I really was. Fifty was coming around the corner. I was about to see the bottom of the hill. Jab. Punch. Swing. I'm not too old. I'm not some geezer. I'm no old crony. The lies were easy, it was believing it which was harder.

I sat on the bench and tossed some cold water over me when a book of matches smacked me upside the head. It stuck right to my forehead. I peeled it away and narrowed my eyes. Moonlight Lounge? "What's this?" I asked. I honestly didn't know.

Nancy did a pretty good job of holding herself together. She didn't cry right away. Her voice cracked, "Read the inside."

I should have known I was about to get it. I should have never of opened the damned thing. I might have still been married.

"Thanks for the great tail, Vegeta. Call me next time you're _hard up_ – Bulma."

I looked at Nancy, mouth wide open.

"Get out."

I got to my feet, hand still gripping that black book of death. "But, Nan-"

"I don't wanna hear it. Get out, Vegeta." The tears started running.

I didn't know what to do. I've never been good at consoling a woman when she's crying. When our son died, all I could do was hold her. I couldn't make myself feel a thing. Maybe that's when I stopped loving life. Maybe that's when I stopped loving Nancy.

When I came back later that night, all of her stuff was gone. Right down to her pillow.

.

.

.

My birthday came and went. Nancy called; once. She'd forgotten her toothbrush. I told her to buy a new one. Maybe she was just checking to see if I was still alive. Maybe she wanted an apology. I asked her if she'd come back if I did. She hung up on me. I guess that constitutes as a no.

Friends from the force gradually stopped coming by to check on me. I stopped cleaning the house. Sometimes, I forgot to eat.

That little book of matches? I kept it. It sat upon my dresser like a loaded Faberge egg. I was too scared to touch it. I was too scared to throw it away.

For three weeks it stared me in the face, daring me to trace my steps. It would lead to the truth. A truth I …didn't want to know. No, not knowing was good. They say ignorance is bliss. I'll just bask in the bliss.

I stopped sleeping. I stopped showering. I started drinking. I forgot what life was.

Anything you do for twenty one days or more consecutively is technically an addiction. I became a slave to the bottles of bourbon and aspirin that lay scattered over my home. I couldn't live without a mircowaved dinner and my reruns of spaghetti Westerns. I collected half-answered pages of newspaper crossword puzzles. I was addicted to staring at a package of matches.

It might have been a month more before I spilled tomato soup across the counter. I wouldn't have reached for the discarded sheet had I not burned myself. But there it was: wedding announcements. The mayor was marrying Nancy Hess, a widow.

That was it. According to everyone on this fucking mudball of a planet, I was dead. My ex-wife is a widow, not some fucking divorcee.

I proceeded to kill myself by drinking not only my nightly bottle of scotch whiskey, but dove through the vodka and the gin. If I was dead to the world, I might as well be dead to myself, too. It's not like I've got anything to live for. I swallowed half the bottle of aspirin.

"Oh man. This place is a shithole."

My blurred vision gave birth to a very Picasso Bardock.

"You look like Hell, old man."

My partner. My right hand man. This was my best man at my wedding and would be a pallbearer at my funeral. He was there from the beginning of the end, a rookie cop assigned to a dinosaur. He was a tag-along, a showboating know-it-all who couldn't keep his dick in his pants. I taught him discipline and he showed me it wasn't the end. I guess you could call it a fair trade.

He saw the clipping, no doubt. My fucking hero.

"Jesus. You drink all this _tonight_? Is there any blood left in you?! I'm amazed you're still conscious!" He couldn't keep the pride out of his voice. I sure could drink them under the table.

Like that, Bardock became my crutch. He started the never ending chore of cleaning by dumping and tossing all the liquor in the house, much to my dismay. I was still conscious through the dinner he put together.

He was over almost every night for the next month. He cooked, he laughed, and he cleaned. He was the wife who left me. Give him shit for it and I'll bet you'd find rat poison in your dinner.

He brought me my life back.

"Bardock, where's Riley?"

"Huh?" He turned from the TV, his brow curled up in question.

"Your wife."

"Ah. Grass munchin' ex-wife, to be exact. She and the kids moved up North. Wanted to be closer to the Guru and the woods. You know, live the life of a devout little girl all over again. Poor kids."

I didn't have to ask whether or not he'd gotten custody rights. It was almost assured he didn't. Despite all the beatings and mistakes, Bardock had problems staying a one woman man. Not only that, his record with the force wasn't squeaking; it had a dull ring to it. As much as he'd say it didn't bother him, I knew he was just as lonely as I was. He missed his kids. He let it slip once, at dinner. He mentioned how he used to put up their drawings and grades on the fridge. What a soft sucker at heart.

"I'm sorry." I'm sorry they took your kids from you.

He understood and grunted in reply, his attention once again at the TV.

I never thanked him for saving my life. It would cheapen it all to say anything. In a way, we saved each other.

.

.

.

To keep myself from my habits, I took up beating the bag down. I pumped at it, dodging and working, jabbing and swinging all day long. I was sweating out all the bad things I'd ever done. I was sweating out the alcohol, the pain, the lies. I was letting loose the memories. I was working away the aching in my heart and from deep down in my bones.

I was in a shape I haven't been in since college. I had to buy pants smaller at the waist and shirts bigger at the neck and shoulders. I was filling out. It felt good. I felt good. I walked around the house in my boxers, terrifying Bardock on his visits. I laughed as he growled out the fact I'm old enough to be in a wheelchair and not sporting shorts and a wife-beater. I think he's jealous.

I was moving on with my life, thinking I could do some part time work somewhere, just to busy myself when that book of matches smacked me again.

Sure, they weigh nothing, but when I realized what it was, I felt like I'd been hit with a ton of bricks. That book of matches. The black book of matches. The Moonlight Lounge book of matches. I reworked it all over in my head. I remembered getting hammered, sloshed, completely tossed. I got in a cab. I didn't make it home. "Call me next time you're _hard up_ – Bulma." Bulma. Blue hair. Vanilla. Absolutely beautiful Bulma.

I'd spent the night with a whore.

I'd spent the night with a _whore_.

Bardock watches as realization washes over me. He lifts himself from the door frame and collects his coat and mine. "I'll drive."

Before I notice, I'm in the car with him, parked at the front of the Moonlight Lounge, the sunlight fading into darkness. Lights flicker to life on the front sign, humming their electric mantra. I could hear the music wafting from beyond the double doors.

I gave Bardock one look, one hateful stare, before leaving the car and slamming the door. He smiled back at me, tipped his hat like a bloody chauffer and drove away. It was like he left me on Hell's doorstep. I had no where else to go but the face the fate God's twisted mind set up for me.

I pushed my way through the doors, a haze of smoke and fumes parts for the rush of air, momentarily providing a clear look at what laid out before me. It was a bar, nothing special. Poles provided for the ladies, stools for the men. The house was empty, the moonlight not yet freeing the troops of lushes and lonely souls.

"Yeah, what'd'ya want?" A narrow faced man shoved his way in front of me.

"I'm looking for someone."

"Ain't that special," he sneered, again blocking my path.

"Bulma."

The look on his face didn't change. If anything, it got uglier. It was beginning to piss me off. "And who the fuck are you?"

"Vegeta."

"Like I'm supposed to know who some piss ant nobody like you is?"

I could tell that this conversation was over. I put my hand on his shoulder, a motion common with a gentleman giving up. My penknife peeked through the groin of his trousers and pricked his skin just enough to get his attention. I pulled him forward, whispering casually into his ear, "Either you tell Miss Bulma I'm here, or you'll end up being a Missus yourself."

I nudged the penknife up just a bit, knowing I drew blood. He nodded, swallowing hard, "Y-y-yeeesss. Thi-this way!"

I gave him a wink as I let him go. "There's a good lad."

He led me to the back of the house, the lights low and the smoke heavier, to a door with Bulma's name clearly drawn across it. A glare sent the little shrimp scrambling, his hands cupping his precious package.

I rapped on the wood and waited with baited breath.

She opened the door and I felt like St. Peter had opened the Pearly Gates. Vanilla invaded my nose, beauty my eyes. Her voice was melodic and dulcet. "Hello Vegeta. I had a feeling I'd see you again."

I pulled my hat from head and covered my heart with it, giving the proper respect to the lady. "Miss Bulma." That's all I had to say. No big speech, no blubbering or confessing, no apologies or demands. I was right out of ideas and things to say. I couldn't even ask about the weather.

Moments passed as I stared at her, searching those blue crystal spheres for something, Hell, anything. Forgiveness? Grace? Sanctuary? Fear? Anger? I don't know what I was looking for, but I was desperate in my hunt.

She batted her eyes - it looked like snow falling, sparkly and wondrous - and flashed a genuine smile my way. "Please, come in."

I walked into another world.

The door shut behind me.

I was on her turf now. I was vulnerable.

I unconsciously patted my chest, looking for the confidence I kept in a Magnum with six shots.

Oh yeah, I'm retired. No cannon.

She sat at her vanity, those long legs draped over the other, her feet covered with glittery heels. "You must have some rich friends, Vegeta; I'm not cheap."

Suddenly, I was at attention.

Her dainty hands picked up a cigarette and she struck a match. I watched as those pouty, red lips encompassed a filter less cigarette and her ample chest rise as she took a deep drag. She disposed of the match, the scent of sulfur enough to cause my own hand to twitch. Where were my cigarettes? I really need a cigarette.

"You look good," she said, a puff of smoke escaping her mouth. "Bardock keeps handsome company, I see."

Bardock. Math was never this easy.

"The strong and silent type, ain't 'cha?"

I got to my feet, feeling suddenly like this little room was about to collapse on me. I nervously glanced around, expecting the goons to pop out of the woodwork. Potential weapons filled the mental inventory, possible escape plans made instant schematics. I wet my lips, hand squeezing my hat just tight enough to crush the bowl.

"Whoa, sweetheart… You didn't know, did you?" Comprehension fills her voice and her face.

I left like a bat out of Hell.

.

.

.

I waited in the darkness, the slow simmer of my blood kept just below boiling. He waltzed in, smelling of sweet perfume and fresh flowers. "Hey, Vegeta. How'd it--"

My fist connected with his jaw with a sickening _crunch_.

He crumpled against the wall, holding the pieces of his face. "Fuck!" he spat around his loose teeth.

"You paid her, you asshole! You fucking paid her!" I raged and seethed, my words more of a hiss. "Get out."

Bardock wiped at his mouth, the blood from his torn cheeks oozing passed his numbing lips. He carried himself outside. With his back to me, I watched the steam rise over his head in a ghostly halo as he admitted the scene. "Sure, I paid her. And the last time you were happy in the arms of a woman, Vegeta? You're not dead, you know."

"I'm not like you," I shut the door.

I expected a medical bill. It never came.

.

.

.

Bardock showed up at my door a few weeks later. Wire was shoved this way and that, his jaw held together with pins and braces. I felt inclined to rip them from his bones and let him heal like a freak.

Fear would not fill his eyes.

I could say that I respected him for that. The damned fool.

"She's pregnant, you know."

I shut the door on his face; a bit too softly for my own good. It clicked shut quietly.

She's pregnant.

I let the fact wash over me like molten steel. I was burning all over with an emotion I couldn't name.

I was a father again.

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End file.
